SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.)
Random Recollections of an Old Publisher. By William Tinsley. 2 vols. (Simpkin and Marshall. 21s.)—Mr. Tinsley, after giving some reminiscences of childhood and boyhood—he began life at nine by "bird-keeping" at half-a-crown a week—devotes his first volume to literature and things more or less connected with it, as circulating libraries and the like. In his second he has much to say about the drama and its exponents, whether actors or playwrights. Then he goes back to literature, in the journalistic and other forms. He has seen many men, if not many cities, for, indeed, he was faithful to London as long as London was faithful to him. To literary men of every kind, to the reviewer who, as is the case with the writer of this notice, has had a long-standing acquaintance with books, and to the playgoer, old or young, these volumes should be full of interest. And the general public ought to find them well worth reading. Mr. Tinsley speaks his mind with much frankness. We see no trace of malice; on the contrary, he is commonly full of kindli- ness and forbearance. But when he feels himself to have been injured he says so, and, it must be confessed, he has sometimes had good reason. The old idea that the publisher is an ogre who lures into his den the guileless author, and makes a feast off his flesh and bones, has passed into the realm of fiction. The author is often a good man of business, sometimes not very scrupulous, and sometimes positively a rogue. He who sells an old book as a new one ; he who undertakes a collaboration, leaves the whole of the work to his partner, but lets his sole name appear on the title-page ; and he who takes money for work that he never performs are "rogues in grain." We do not mean to quote any of Mr. Tinsley's stories, whether they be to the advantage or disadvantage of the people with whom he has had dealings. Our readers must go to the volumes them- selves. There they will find recollections of scores, we might say of hundreds, of persons whose names have been more or less known during the last forty years.
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